


we'll all float on all right

by thistidalwave



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 21:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna is the picture of a typical starving artist and Ruby is the owner and manager of the newest art gallery in the city. They meet because of an innocent cafe booth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll all float on all right

The first time Anna sees Ruby, her first thought is _hot_.

Which makes sense, because Ruby is absolutely nothing if not the definition of the word, with her impeccably fitted business suits with pencil skirts and towering heels that make her legs look like they go on for miles and her pulled back dark hair that bobs in in its ponytail when she walks in a cute manner that doesn’t fit with the sharp line of her cheekbones, the hard look in her eyes as she appraises the artwork on the walls of the gallery. 

Anna’s second thought is _oh shit, that must be the manager of the gallery_ , because Ruby turns her face toward where Anna is, and Anna recognizes her from the newspaper. The gallery is brand new in the city, just opened, and totally exclusive and elite--all the artists are hand picked by Ruby herself, and she is notorious for being a tough critic. 

Anna is a little disappointed when she realizes, to be honest. There’s no way Anna has any chance in hell with Ruby.

Still, she can admire those legs from across the room and go home later and fantasize about them. Probably end up drawing them, because that’s what Anna does with her world--draws it.

-

The first time Ruby sees Anna, her first thought is _that’s_ my _booth._

Which is entirely irrational, because she’s been to this cafe a grand total of once, the day before yesterday, but it had been a good once. She’d sat in that booth and sipped her americano and imagined that this would become routine now that she lived in the city and her gallery was to open the next day. She would be a regular, would have a usual, would always sit in the same spot.

With that idea shot to hell, Ruby sinks down into a chair at a small table by the window, facing her booth.

Ruby’s second thought is _her hair is really red,_ immediately followed by _she is really fucking pretty_ when Anna looks up, around, and back down at whatever she’s doing.

After a while of alternately scrolling through her emails on her Blackberry and staring at Anna, Ruby realizes that what Anna is doing is drawing. She contemplates going over there, starting a conversation now that she has an excuse, but just as she thinks it, Anna closes her sketchbook, shoves it and her pencil into her bag, and stands up, walking right past Ruby when she leaves without noticing.

Ruby sighs to herself, because this is her life, of course.

-

Anna is a bit taken aback to find Ruby, of all people, sitting in her booth a couple weeks after the gallery opening. She considers just sitting elsewhere, but that booth has the best view and Anna is reluctant to give it up even for the day. It would set her progress on her drawing of the cafe back more than she’d like.

“Um, hi,” she says, holding onto the strap of her messenger bag like a lifeline. “I’m sorry, but you’re sitting in my booth?”

Ruby looks up from her phone and, to Anna’s surprise, grins. “Do you mind sharing? I can give you this side, if you need.”

Anna doesn’t have the heart to tell Ruby to fuck off, so she nods. “Please.”

Ruby scoots out of the booth and back into the other side, and Anna sits down, pushes Ruby’s coffee cup across the table and lays her sketchbook out as well. She really hopes Ruby doesn’t want to talk--Anna’s not great at drawing and talking at the same time.

Of course, just as she thinks this, Ruby says, “My name’s Ruby, by the way. Ruby--”

“I know who you are,” Anna interrupts. “My name’s Anna Milton, and I kind of need quiet to draw, so if you’re going to sit here...”

“Right, I apologize,” Ruby says. She doesn’t sound the least bit sorry, but Anna lets it go. 

Half an hour later, Ruby has replied to all her emails, finished her coffee, and not gotten a single glimpse of what it is Anna’s working on. It’s frustrating her to no end, because she really wants to know if Anna’s any good, but she doesn’t want to ask Anna to show her. She figures Anna wouldn’t appreciate it.

She does it anyway, because she’s like that. “So, what are you working on?”

Anna looks up and, sure enough, looks annoyed. “I’m not looking for any favours,” she says.

Ruby laughs at that. “I sat at this table because I know this is where you work,” she informs Anna. “I was hoping you’d confront me about it.”

Anna blinks. “Oh,” she says. She bites her lip, looking down at her page, and Ruby finds it somehow adorable and uncomfortably hot at the same time. “It’s not finished,” Anna says.

“Show me anyway,” Ruby says. It comes out sharper than she’d intended, but she doesn’t take it back.

Anna flips the sketchpad around. Ruby pulls it toward herself carefully and surveys the drawing. It’s of the interior of the cafe, complete with a bustle of people inside, blurred in motion. It speaks of warmth, of familiarity and routine, and Ruby is awestruck. 

“You’re amazing,” she blurts out, almost without meaning to, and looks up to see that Anna’s cheeks have flushed pink. 

“It’s not-- I mean--” 

“It is,” Ruby insists. “If that’s what you do with pencil and small paper, I’m intrigued to know what your larger pieces are like. Assuming you have some.”

“I do,” Anna says, taking her sketchbook back. She doesn’t offer any more information. Ruby frowns, but decides not to push the issue.

“It was nice to meet you,” Ruby says. “Thanks for sharing your art with me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Ruby stands, then hesitates and turns back toward Anna. “Can I get your number?”

Anna looks up at her. “Uh, what for?”

Ruby smirks. “So that I can call you and ask you to dinner sometime.”

“I’m not--”

“Looking for any favours? This isn’t a favour,” Ruby says. She takes the pencil out of Anna’s hand and scrawls her number in tiny numbers on the edge of Anna’s sketchbook. “See? Ball’s in your park. See you around, Anna.”

Anna stares after Ruby for longer than is probably strictly necessary.

-

Anna doesn’t call Ruby. She texts her two days later instead, because Ruby is confusing, and Anna wants to be able to stare at her response for as long as she wants in an attempt to interpret its meaning.

_11:20 AM 6175554935_  
Is this hypothetical dinner you wanted to call me about for business or otherwise?

_11:34 AM Ruby_  
Say yes and maybe you’ll find out. 7 tonight, that restaurant across from the cafe?

_12:11 PM Anna_  
I’ll be there.

Okay, so maybe her response wasn’t hard to decode, but it was fucking sneaky. Anna kind of likes it.

-

Anna is (more than) kind of hoping this isn’t just a business dinner, so she wears date clothes, which involves one of her few dresses and an actual attempt at makeup. When she sends Rachel a panicked picture of herself, Rachel texts back that she looks utterly fuckable, which was the goal, but Rachel knew that was the goal, so Anna feels like she was probably just lying to make Anna feel better. Rachel tells her to shut the fuck up and go get laid.

Ruby meets her by the entrance to the restaurant, wearing one of her business suits, just like always, but Anna still has hope until a few minutes have passed and Ruby says, “So, how would you like to be my featured artist in three months?”

Anna nearly chokes on her own spit. “You’ve only seen one of my drawings. An incomplete one, too.”

Ruby shrugs. “I know talent. And if you turn out to actually be terrible, which you won’t, I’ll just drop your ass.”

“Pleasant,” Anna says. 

“Should we talk money?” Ruby asks, and Anna kisses any possibility of getting laid tonight goodbye.

-

The thing that Ruby likes about Anna is that she doesn’t take any of Ruby’s bullshit--or anyone else’s, for that matter. She wants quiet to draw in? She demands that shit. She thinks Ruby’s request that she produce maybe six or seven new pieces in the next two months is absurd? Ruby wouldn’t dream of arguing, because it totally was and she’d just wanted to see if Anna would be a pushover. She wants Ruby to stop calling her? That’s not going to happen, but she stops answering point blank, so there’s that. 

“No, seriously, pick up the next time I call, because I have something important to talk to you about,” Ruby tells Anna’s voicemail. She sighs, hangs up, and stares at her phone. She has it bad for one of her artists, and that’s probably not a good thing, but she really can’t help it. It’s been nearly two months since they met, and it has been revealed that Anna is exactly Ruby’s type and utterly unreceptive to any come ons that Ruby may or may not have made. 

“Why do I like you,” she asks the phone. It doesn’t answer.

-

Anna doesn’t pick up the next time Ruby calls, or the next five times after that, either, because her phone is under her bed, and she is in her living room slash studio, sitting in front her last painting, and considering bursting into tears. 

The first two paintings were easy enough--just blown up versions of previous sketches, detailed and coloured. For the third one she’d decided to create something totally new, and her muse had provided her with an abstract concept of the rear view of a businesswoman.

It’s Ruby, obviously, but Anna is pretty sure the ‘obviously’ part only applies to her--the woman in the painting is blonde, even, but Anna knows, and she’s positive it was a terrible, terrible idea.

It’s supposed to be pretty much done, and it is, except Anna feels like _no_ , it’s fucking _not_ , no one should ever be allowed to see this.

She doesn’t burst into tears, but she does fall asleep in her chair and wake up with a hell of a crick in her neck and an aching back.

-

Anna stands in Roux Art Gallery, staring up at her own work on the feature wall, and kind of wants to just melt into the floor and disappear. 

Rachel had insisted the businesswoman painting was some of Anna’s best work and threatened to eviscerate her if she didn’t let Ruby put it in the gallery. Anna had acquiesced because her best friend is fucking scary. 

“How do you feel?” Ruby asks, coming up beside her with a glass of wine in one hand.

“I need to die or get drunk,” Anna says. 

“No dying on my payroll,” Ruby says seriously. “But I support getting drunk. You deserve it.” She hands Anna her wine glass and fetches herself another from a passing tray. “To perfect meetings in cafes,” she says, clinking her glass against Anna’s.

Anna knocks back the wine in a manner that is entirely inappropriate and when she looks back at Ruby, she’s grinning and holding an identically empty glass.

-

So Anna’s not exactly sure how they got here, because she was expecting to never get this, but she is definitely not complaining about the way Ruby pushes her into the wall of her living room, shoves a thigh between Anna’s, and kisses the ever living fuck out of her, hands very determinedly making their way underneath Anna’s dress and skimming over her stomach, making her shudder into the kiss and pull away with a playful nip to Ruby’s lower lip. 

“Need your clothes off,” Anna tells Ruby, tugging at her suit jacket and fumbling over the buttons for a moment before finally figuring them out and pushing the jacket off Ruby’s shoulders. It falls to the floor, and Ruby busies herself with mapping out Anna’s neck with her mouth while Anna tries to keep her head on straight enough to figure out how to get Ruby’s skirt off.

When they’re both finally naked, having slowly worked their way through peeling each item of clothing off each other, Anna pulls away just enough to admire Ruby, and then says “I wanna paint you.”

Ruby groans, lets her forehead fall to Anna’s shoulder and runs her hand down Anna’s body, skimming down and moving back up to move her thumb over Anna’s nipple, making her inhale sharply. “Now?” Ruby asks. “But I don’t want to, I want to have sex,” she says pathetically. 

Anna laughs, kisses Ruby, pushes her down onto the couch. “Not what I meant,” Anna says. “Want to wreck you, mark you up, turn you into even more of a work of art than you already are.” She kisses down Ruby’s body, skips to her thighs just to tease her. “All this pale skin,” she murmurs. “Just made for it.” And then she’s on her feet, picking a tube of pink paint that she knows is nearly empty anyway and coating her palms with it. She climbs over Ruby with a smirk, encouraged by the one Ruby is throwing back at her, and presses her hands to Ruby’s stomach. It’s cold, and Ruby gasps, and Anna pulls back to admire the handprints, the markings that clearly scream that Ruby is hers, if only for this moment, and then Ruby is sitting up, crushing herself to Anna and kissing her with everything she has, everything she is, and Anna kisses back just as fervently, digs her hands into Ruby’s hair, streaks paint through it and down Ruby’s arms, laces their fingers together, and the next notable moment is when Ruby is hovering above Anna, blocking the light from the one lamp that Anna leaves on most of the time so that it shines around her hair like a halo, two of her fingers pressed inside of Anna, her thumb working at Anna’s clit, taking her apart one firm fuck against her at a time, and Anna is pushing Ruby to the side so that she can mimic the movements, can find a rhythm that makes Ruby’s eyes roll up into her head, her fingers move faster, the sounds coming out of her mouth obscene and involving more than the occasional swear.

When Anna comes, it’s sudden and hard and blinding, and she not only loses her grip on reality, she loses her grip on the couch and manages to fall the foot to the floor, the shock of it confusing, and Ruby is laughing at her, so Anna scowls and pushes at Ruby’s thighs, licks into her with determination, and Ruby is still giggling between moans, but her hands tangle into Anna’s hair and she can’t stop talking, _fuck fuck fuck yes, so hot so close, yes_ , and then she’s falling over the edge, too, although less literally than Anna had, and Anna works her through it until Ruby tugs her away and up so that she can kiss her. “So hot,” she says against Anna’s lips. “Mine,” Anna says back, repeats it between kisses.

Anna takes a moment to admire her work--Ruby’s swollen lips, the streaks of pink in her hair and down her body, the smeared handprints on her stomach. She is utterly wrecked and utterly beautiful, and Anna wants to keep her forever.

“Come on,” she says, standing and extending her hand. “I have a bed we’d be more comfortable in.” Ruby takes her hand, follows her, a familiar smile on her face, and Anna knows that even if she had meant to sleep, that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon, and she really wouldn’t have it any other way.

-

Ruby wakes up in an unfamiliar bed to the sound of bare feet padding over a tile floor and tuneless humming accompanied by the smell of food. She blinks against bright sunlight, sits up and stretches, and finds a fluffy blue blanket to wrap herself in to go see about some of that food, because she is fucking starving. 

Anna smiles when Ruby wanders into the kitchen and sits down at the table. “Morning,” she says. “I’m not great at cooking, but I can do eggs and bacon.”

“Lay it on me,” Ruby says.

Anna dishes up two plates and puts one down in front of Ruby before going to sit at the other side of the table. They eat in silence for a good three minutes before Anna works up the nerve to put down her fork and say “What is this?”

Ruby looks at her in confusion. “Breakfast?”

“No, between us,” Anna clarifies. “It’s not just going to be a one night, nice time, see you around thing, right?”

Ruby snorts. “No.” She pauses. “Unless you want it to be?”

“No,” Anna says immediately.

“Good.” Ruby smiles, and Anna smiles back, and then they both go back to their food, and it feels perfect, like everything coming together just as expected.


End file.
